All of Doctor Who, one episode at a time!

Episode 043 – “Planet of Giants”

Every sci-fi series that lasts long enough does certain things. We get an alternate universe story or two, we get an evil twin, we get a western episode, and we get a shrinking episode. This is that episode, and fair play to the production team; at least they didn’t wait long.

And they…uh…printed the title in the thing!

We start off season two (yes, really!), with the Doctor and company flying merrily along, and then it hits the fan. I like the idea of the doors opening mid-flight, and that they show what a possible outcome of that is.

I do like that the series is continuing the trend of Barbara and the Doctor starting to come closer and develop a good working relationship. The writers are taking many chances to pair them off to do things, which helps the characters develop.

We quickly establish that our characters are on Earth, which is good, but they drag out the mystery of everything being large a bit longer than I’d have liked, with Ian concluding it’s all just some odd exhibition.

The shrinking of our team was caused by a reduction in “space pressure”, which is…an interesting scientific idea, in fact. I mean, assuming we take it at face value.

Having established the shrinking, we now move on to the Silent Spring phase of our story, where we have two fellows discussing pesticides. One seems a bit threatening and sinister and the other is a scientist who is about to issue a report about the sinister fellow’s chemicals. Well, we all know where that’s going to go.

The SFX here are sound, though the giant close-up of the dead guy’s face is a bit much. Also, the final shot is something that would make Mrs Slocumbe proud.